


Rosy-Fingered Dawn Flipped the Page of Life

by DinoDina



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Canary Wharf Battle, Developing Relationship, Drinking, Drinking to Cope, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s03e12-e13 The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, F/M, Flat Holm, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Italics, M/M, Martha Jones's Family, Memory Loss, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Martha Jones, Post-Episode: s02e06 Reset, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Survivor Guilt, The Year That Never Was (Doctor Who), the author really likes her italics guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26729965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DinoDina/pseuds/DinoDina
Summary: In the aftermath of Owen's death, Jack came to Martha, cried on her sofa, questioned and raged at an unresponsive universe. Martha had walked the Earth, saved it, and yet she could do nothing for her closest friend.He hid his face and demanded to know why Owen had to die, blamed himself for being helpless, too slow. And Martha was no stranger to death or grief, had encountered far too much of it; questioned, sometimes, if any of it had truly happened. Time had been reset, after all, and the only evidence of that year was etched in her memory.Or: Martha, Jack, grief, and the Year That Never Was - a nonlinear narrative of what happened before and what happened after.
Relationships: Ianto Jones/Martha Jones, Jack Harkness & Martha Jones, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29
Collections: Torchwood Fan Fests: Bingo Fest 2020





	Rosy-Fingered Dawn Flipped the Page of Life

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: there's a lot of stuff in the tags, but there's also a moment about 3/4 of the way in where Ianto gets agitated and Martha has to stop him from picking at his skin. So. Not really sure how big of an official warning that needs, but please heed all the present warnings.

An empty wine bottle stood between Martha and Jack on the coffee table. It was late, the light in the hotel room was too bright against the darkness outside the full windows.

Martha looked sideways at Jack as he emptied the second bottle. He had shown up hours ago, hands shaking and voice dull, had taken one look at the wall-length windows that looked out over the bay, and his chin had quivered; seconds later, his face was pressed into his hand as he tried to muffle broken sobs.

The tears flowed freely until they had dried, and now drunk but not quite defeated, Jack was slumped on the sofa at Martha's side.

She didn't know Owen.

But Jack did. _Of course_ Jack did. He was one of the most compassionate people Martha had ever met, for all that he had lost and suffered. And now—because of Martha—he had lost one of his own, a man he considered a friend, perhaps a brother. Martha replayed in her brain the way that Jack had acted around his team. _Not a brother, a son._ Did Jack have a son somewhere? Probably.

Martha emptied her wineglass in a way that would have made her mother shudder. Thinking about her mother made Martha shudder in turn.

"I could have pushed him out of the way," Jack said hollowly.

Martha didn't think so. "It's not your fault."

When she sobered up, Martha knew she would spend the day thinking about it. Jack had brought Owen into Torchwood. She didn't need Jack to tell her the whole story to know that. He had brought Owen in, had spent years building him up into the man he was now—the man he was up until a few hours ago—and now he had to return to the Hub in the morning and see a corpse where his friend should have been.

Martha had lost so many people, walking the earth alone, and she'd gotten them all back. She hadn't been with UNIT long enough to experience that kind of loss yet. Looking at Jack, she didn't know if she would be able to.

A few days ago, Jack had asked her for a UNIT cap. For sex.

It had made Martha laugh.

She didn't know if she could even smile anymore.

Jack made a small broken noise and Martha made a concerned one in return. Then, because while Martha was too hurt to speak, he wasn't, Jack opened his mouth and let the words tumble out.

"He killed me." He paused as Martha tried to search for the metaphor. "Right before I left. Owen killed me. And I forgave him. He was... he was so good. So broken. We all are. Torchwood takes and takes. Took my wife. Took my life. I didn't want this! I didn't have a choice. It was either serve or be dissected and here I am. He killed himself and here I am... Had to find a team. Suzie. She killed herself. Killed a lot of other people too. Torchwood took her—she wasn't _bad_. Took Owen. Took my daughter... I can't see her anymore, I..."

Martha's heart ached and she took Jack into her arms. She was good at this. Good at comforting people without hope. Lonely people, broken people. Too good for anyone to be, really, too good to have learned this in medical school because she _hadn't_. How many people had she comforted this way when she walked the Earth? How many mothers, fathers, children, soldiers had she held as they died in front of her, in spirit and mind if not in body?

She hadn't stopped holding them. There was only so much therapy and UNIT's sleeping pills could do, and Martha knew the Doctor had fixed everything, she _knew_ , and yet...

"Did you know him?" Jack whispered.

Martha shook her head. "I met him a few days ago."

"No, did you... I didn't want to ask before. You know... _then_. Did you know them?" Jack sat up, his eyes dry once more. "What happened to them?"

The official line, the one the Master had fed everyone, was that Torchwood had died in the Himalayas. A tragic accident. Too young and too brave, the team had given their lives to save the world—there had been no official statement as to what exactly they had been fighting, nor why they had gone there alone, without UNIT's backup—and the reason for their deaths was the disappearance of their leader, Captain Jack Harkness, who had been apprehended and was being held in custody.

It was as neat a story as it needed to be, with threads hanging loose by the sides but ultimately holding together. If Martha hadn't known Jack trusted this organization, she would have dismissed the facts as a sideways piece of propaganda, part of the larger picture but ultimately not important enough for a pause.

* * *

_Martha was hurt. She didn't know where, she didn't even really know how, but her arm didn't want to move and breathing hurt, and she was sure that her ears weren't supposed to ring like this. She didn't want to be stealthy anymore. It had been over a month, now, of figuring out how to be evasive enough, how to appear trusting to the refugee camps that were popping up all over the place, how to scavenge for food and clothing, how to keep going when everything in her screamed that she needed to stop._

_She hadn't signed on for this. The first week had been alright, time didn't seem to have much meaning—she had lost any respect for linear time during her travels, and getting used to living the normal way hurt._

_Everything hurt._

_Martha leaned against a building. When had the building grown there? She whimpered. She didn't like blacking out from pain and yet still moving. She was getting frighteningly good at it, though._

_She took a step forward, and then another and another and another, and yes, her arm burned and her ribs didn't want to power her lungs anymore, but her legs still worked and_ she could do this.

_She just needed to get to the group of houses just over... that way. She tried to remember where. Left? No, right. Or not. She just needed to take a break. Just a few minutes. She would sit down and gather her thoughts, and then she could be on her way._

_Martha stretched her arm out to brace herself as she sat, forgetting that she couldn't, and was falling before she could realize it._

* * *

"I didn't meet all of them."

Jack didn't reply. The admission hurt coming out of Martha's throat and Jack didn't reply. He didn't move at all save for giving her a small nod.

He wasn't surprised.

"There were a few explosions in Cardiff early on," Martha said. "A cop I met... I didn't meet him, I was too scared, but I _heard_... someone from Torchwood lived in one of the flats. She was gone, out of Cardiff—they were furious Torchwood disappeared. He said it was the only time they would have willingly asked for Torchwood's help, but... I don't know whose flat it was, but it was gone. No one claimed what they managed to recover."

Marth wanted to say something to placate Jack, make him feel better, but she couldn't. Nothing she could say would help.

* * *

_Martha woke up in a surprisingly soft bed, under a well-woven sheet and a warm blanket. It was heavy and reminded her of the blankets her mum would bring when she was younger and asked to build blanket forts with her siblings._

_She didn't hear the yelling and murmurs of conversation that usually accompanied the refugee camps, nor did she see the lights that never fully shut off in them, even though the curfew mandated total blackout. No one could sleep in darkness anymore._

_Martha rolled her head on the pillow to get a better look at her surroundings, feeling stiff and sore but simultaneously calmer than ever. The room was dark and airy but without windows. The door was closed._

_It was safe. It looked safe. It_ felt _safe, and if not for the turmoil of the past weeks, Martha would have shut her eyes and gone right back to sleep, exhausted and still feeling her injuries. What_ were _they? Her arm hurt, and her head, and her ribs, and they ached as all injuries did, but less..._

_Had someone undressed her?_

_Martha wasn't wearing her clothes. She was wearing something—she took a moment. Soft. Probably cotton. Pajamas? She hadn't worn proper pajamas in... it must have been years now. She favored old shirts and shorts nowadays, perfect loungewear for studying and easy to transition into bed with later._

_A small moan sounded from somewhere._

_Oh. No, that was her. Martha clamped down on the panic that threatened to rise. She didn't know where she was, she was hurt, she was alone, in the dark, in the..._

_She took a deep breath and tried to swallow—couldn't, because her throat was dry. That was fine. She had so far managed to have enough food and water for too long, but she'd gone thirsty for longer than advised. She just needed to get a grip, get herself together. It only made sense for her to get captured, and she'd known it was going to happen at some point._

_Martha didn't dare close her eyes to ground herself, but she took another breath. And another. Her sister had gotten into meditation a few years ago—and maybe it wasn't the right time to think of Tish, who was..._

_"You're awake."_

_Martha didn't yell, but it was close. "Who are you?"_

_The door was open and the light from what seemed to be a corridor backlit the man who had entered. Martha couldn't see his face, but he was tall and confident. His voice was deep and soft, with a slight Welsh accent, and would have been calming if not for Martha's earlier panic._

_"My name's Ianto. You're safe here."_

* * *

"He told me he killed them all."

Martha didn't need to ask who _he_ was.

* * *

_She was sitting up, leaning against the cold, metal headboard. It dug into her back uncomfortably even through the pillow Ianto had placed there, but the room was still warm, and Ianto sat far away enough that her breath didn't catch in fear when she spoke._

_"Where am I?"_

_"Flat Holm."_

_Martha waited a moment, hoping that word association would help. It didn't. "What is that?"_

_"An island six kilometers from Lavernock Point in the Vale of Glamorgan. It includes the southernmost point of Wales."_

_"Did you rehearse that?"_

_"I learned it. Flat Holm is also home to a... you could call it a hospital."_

_"Why_ could _?" Martha was beginning to hate her odds here. She'd watched enough films back when they'd been available—mysterious men, islands, and hospitals never went well together._

_"What do you know about aliens?"_

_Martha almost laughed. In the weeks since she had left her family, the Doctor, and Jack to their fates, she hadn't heard of aliens. Her life of travel and learning had become one of survival. There were moments, now, when she wasn't sure if she had just imagined it all as a coping mechanism. She_ knew _that the Master had ruled Earth for only a handful of weeks, but the desolation was so far-reaching already and life as she'd known it had become nothing but a dream._

_"I know some," she said after a moment._

_Ianto nodded. "Good. There's a Rift in time and space that runs through Cardiff. Sometimes, things end up in Cardiff. Other times, they disappear. Sometimes they come back. They come back different, damaged. They don't have a place anywhere. So we bring them here. To live, to... not to heal, they're beyond that, but to give them peace."_

_"Who's_ we _?"_

_"Torchwood."_

* * *

Martha wanted to stop. She wasn't drunk enough— _Jack_ wasn't drunk enough—and yet...

She hadn't spoken to anyone about her time walking the Earth. The Doctor had been too heartbroken about the Master. Jack had been excited to return to his team. Her parents and sister were simultaneously pretending none of it had happened and trying to make Martha talk about her obvious trauma.

It was a good thing she worked long hours. None of her bosses knew of Martha's past, only that she had a glowing recommendation from the Doctor himself, but some of the higher-ups had called her in for _conversations_ , assessing her mental state and providing her with counseling that she didn't take advantage of.

The running line was _it didn't happen_. Not quite _get over it_ , but Martha heard it between every word, weaving in and out of every sentence. Just because it had been erased didn't mean that Martha hadn't lived it all.

She didn't have the scars to prove it save for the ones on her mind and soul. She woke up sometimes, feeling the pain of an injury that hadn't happened, and wondered if maybe, it _had_ all been in her head. What was she but a collection of memories? As Martha's memories of the year faded—the memories, not the scars they left—what remained of her?

* * *

_"It's going to scar."_

_Ianto was the one that delivered the news the next morning, not the doctor Martha had seen walking around, or the nurse that shadowed her. She couldn't get a read on Ianto, but Helen, the doctor, reminded her of her mother, matronly, strict, but with a kind smile and even kinder hands. The nurse didn't talk—couldn't, Ianto had let slip—but approached everything with a care evident in the crease that appeared in her forehead._

_Martha nodded as he changed the bandages on her arm._

_Sloppy, the medical student in her complained. Martha, however, couldn't find it in herself to care. She had been alone for so long, despite the outposts of civilization that had helped her along the way—everyone was still too mistrusting, too hopeful for a sudden change that wouldn't come._

_The innate neatness that seemed to follow Ianto, visible in his hairstyle, the nature of his clothes, cracked sometimes. His hands shook when he organized things. Martha drew attention to it on her second day at the hospital, and he smiled sadly._

_"There's no more coffee."_

_"What, anywhere?" That wasn't news to Martha, but outright defeatism wasn't going to help either one of them. Here Ianto was, helping someone he didn't know, and Martha couldn't just throw that back in his face._

_Ianto didn't respond._

_She wasn't sure if he liked speaking. He looked like he had a lot to say. Sometimes. Maybe. Martha didn't know, and not because of the concussion Helen had diagnosed. Ianto didn't seem all there. Like something was missing._

* * *

In her early university years, Martha had made friends and partied with the best of them. She was too uptight, her classmates said, and Martha—in the depths of her heart—had needed to prove them wrong. She could be a good student and a good friend, for good friendship had then been the same as the ability to completely disregard the limits of personal comfort zones.

So Martha knew in a more intimate way than simply a doctor that Jack was nowhere near alcohol poisoning. His metabolism was faster than that of normal humans. And, of course, if he _did_ drink himself to death, he would always come back.

* * *

_"When you said you were Torchwood," Martha brought up on her third day at the hospital, when she was finally allowed to move around freely, "what did you mean?"_

_"I was part of Torchwood One, in London."_

_Martha's brows furrowed. "But... Torchwood One_ fell _."_

 _She remembered Adeola, who had stopped coming to dinner the few times they wanted to see her part of the family. She had rescheduled lunches and shopping trips on both Martha and Tish, and her own sister, always citing work._ Work _, Martha had remembered thinking bitterly,_ what sort of work would expect someone to act like that?

 _They had never gotten over the estrangement, and then Adeola was gone._ A terrorist attack _, they said._ No, the body can't be released _, they said._ It's for the best _, they said, ignoring her parents' tears and her sister's shaking._

 _Adeola had always looked like Martha. Younger by a year, but people had said they could pass as twins. When she and Tish were young and fighting every five minutes, Martha had wished that_ Adeola _was her sister, because she was funny and she never made fun of Martha's dolls, who always had messy hair despite Martha brushing it._

 _It wasn't a terrorist attack, the Doctor told her later, and Martha... was relieved. She learned of Torchwood and she_ hated _them for beginning to tear her family apart, but she was relieved—Adeola hadn't left them for nothing, hadn't lied to them for years for_ nothing _._

 _Except it_ was _really for nothing, wasn't it?_ Torchwood One _, Ianto said, and his eyes were too haunted for his face, as if the memories weren't a year old but only a month._

_"What about the Torchwood in Cardiff?" Martha wanted to know. Maybe she could find Jack's team, work with them. "My friend told me there was one, I don't—"_

_"Torchwood Three is gone."_

* * *

Martha would have to perform the autopsy. It wasn't necessary, not with the way Owen had died, but it was the proper procedure. She hadn't thought Jack to be big on procedure, but it made sense. Owen had given the past five years of his life to Torchwood, working with strange substances and keeping odd hours. Someone had to make sure that nothing was...

Martha cut herself off and focused on Jack. Her heart ached for him, for Owen, though she had little connection to the man except the past week.

"Should I call someone?" she asked.

What qualified _her_ to be the one Jack was crying on? Why had he searched her out? He had a team, people who shared his grief, who didn't blame him no matter how much he wanted them to. Any one of them would be more suited to this than Martha, who had hardly felt whole since she'd returned to Earth.

What could she, jaded, fragile, _hurt_ , offer Jack?

"No," he said, and held on tighter to the hand he'd grasped some minutes ago. "I can't... I can't face them now."

 _Face_. What a funny word. Jack couldn't bear to look at them. She could feel his guilt at the thought, but she _knew_ that he'd asked the universe: _why Owen, why not someone else?_ —and that was a thought Martha could second, because of all the people to die, of all the people she expected to lose, the acerbic doctor wasn't one of them.

* * *

_Martha was helping Ianto in the linen closet. He took care of the high shelves, and she the low, and the time passed quickly in companionable silence. She had been at Flat Holm for five days now, not that individual days felt real anymore. There were no distinctions: hospital observations on Mondays, lunch with Tish on Tuesdays, study group at the library on Wednesdays... What was Thursdays?_

_Martha racked her brain. It hadn't been that long. She knew, of course, that trauma had odd effects on memory, and there had been no shortage of trauma lately. It was... not_ good _—because that seemed impossible—at Flat Holm, but it was better. The facility—Ianto still called it a hospital, but he slipped up sometimes—was all but forgotten, getting low on rations and now using candles instead of electricity for light. Storms raged outside at night, spurred on by ocean waves and the endless sky. It was a starry sky, Martha knew, when it wasn't cloudy, because Helen had let slip that there was a setting for telescopes on one of the cliffs._

_"Jack always made sure to look through them all when he visited," she had said, and then something had pinged, possibly her pager—though Martha hadn't seen a pager—and she immediately ran deeper into the building, leaving Martha alone on the threshold._

_Though she had free reign to explore as she pleased, Martha didn't. She had moved around so much, exploring with the Doctor, running to danger so much more often than away from it, and she was_ tired _._

_They were safe here. Helen made sure of that. Ianto made sure of that. The little silent nurse who followed Helen around and reminded Martha so much of her sister made sure of that._

_"No one's been to bother us," Helen had said the first time Martha had woken up with a scream stuck in her throat._

_The way she said_ us _made Martha remember that there was more to the island, but she didn't want to know. What could she possibly find out that would be worth the energy of exploring?_

_So even with her freedom, Martha stuck to the building she had first woken up in, the room that was now hers, and the linen closet Ianto berated her for disorganizing the only time she had attempted to deal with it alone._

_The stitches in her arm were itching and healing, and she could now stand without getting dizzy, sit without biting back a pained groan at the effect on her ribs. For all that the island seemed timeless—the same sunrise and sunset, the predictable rain, the scent of grass and sea spray—the world hadn't stopped._

_Ianto listened to an old radio every night, sitting alone in the kitchen. From her room, Martha could hear the tinny voices, not details or words but the calming buzz of conversation as he leaned over the weak speaker._

_Her very first dormmate had also held no regard for Martha's sleep schedule, listening to shows and podcasts up into the night, no matter how often reminded her of headphones. They had lost touch after that first year, but hearing Ianto sent a shiver of nostalgia up Martha's neck, and she curled around her pillow to stifle the loneliness._

* * *

"I could have saved him."

* * *

_Helen ran into Martha's room, letting the door bang against the wall when she threw it open, and Martha jumped up, ready for an attack, hand reaching for the knife she always carried but didn't quite know how to use._

_"What is it?"_

_"I can't find him anywhere!" Helen's eyes were wide with worry and Martha heard a patter of feet in the hallway; the nurse ran in and shook her head at Helen, whose desperate eyes turned to Martha. "Ianto. He's missing."_

The Toclafane _._

_Except they didn't steal people, just killed them, cutting them into little pieces and leaving them to suffer, slitting throats when they showed mercy. Not a single one had been spotted on Flat Holm._

_"Maybe he went to the city for food."_

_Helen shook her head. "He_ can't _. He..."_

_The nurse flinched as Helen swore violently._

_Martha bit her lip. "Did you check outside? The other buildings? I don't know him like you do!"_

_She hadn't had a real conversation with Ianto since the moment he delivered the news of Torchwood's demise. As a medical student, Martha hadn't faced death. Not yet. She had seen far more than her fair share as she'd walked through England, but the island was a sanctuary. The Master hadn't touched it. Maybe on purpose, maybe he didn't think it important enough, but the fact remained that it hadn't been touched. It was_ safe _._

_But with Ianto missing—Ianto, who smiled and nodded like a proper butler, always ready with food or drink if needed, eager to turn down beds and deal with the garbage; Ianto, who didn't stay in any room long enough to properly socialize, who had made sure Martha had felt safe before leaving her alone—the place felt empty._

_Helen shook her head again. A nervous habit, maybe, showing helplessness but needing to move. "Let's look again. You can check outside. Annie, go west; Martha, east."_

_The nurse—_ Annie _, finally—nodded just like Martha did, and they left side by side, exchanging looks before they turned in opposite directions on the hospital's threshold._

_Martha shivered in the sea breeze and wished she'd brought a jacket. It was more of a wind than a breeze, threatening to blow Martha right over; she would have been scared walking any closer to the edge of a cliff. She imagined approaching it, letting nature take its course, falling into the angry waves below._

_Was that what had happened to Ianto?_

_Suddenly not cold, Martha nevertheless hugged herself as a shiver raced over her shoulders. She needed to keep moving._

_One foot, then the other. There was no proper path, not here, and the grass was slick with the constant humidity in the air. Martha stepped carefully, looking underfoot instead of around, but the figures of the telescopes ahead broke into the monotony of her peripheral vision—blue and grey and green, clouds and grass and the foreboding sense of the literature she had never quite payed attention to—and Martha changed her course._

_"Oh," she breathed out at the figure huddled by them, hugging his knees and resolutely looking at the darkening sky._

_"Oh," the figure echoed. "Couldn't have said it any better."_

_Martha shifted from foot to foot, awkward at Ianto's dull tone. "Can I join you?"_

_"I can't stop you."_

_It wasn't much of an invitation, but Martha didn't hold much on propriety. She sat gracelessly by him, leaving space enough to reach out should either of them want to. Neither would, she knew, because while Ianto clearly had hidden depths, he was more shadow than person, holding himself back and cracking when he thought no one was looking._

_The sun dipped below the horizon. Without it, Martha shivered again. She didn't like the dark, never had. Not enough to be_ affected _, but enough to notice, to seek out light. She tensed and swallowed against a small wave of panic. The wind moved the very ends of her hair, biting her skin, and she breathed deeply. Outside. She was outside. She was fine. She was—_

_Wearing a coat?_

_Ianto's coat, draped over her shoulders; Ianto, sitting down again, closer than before, arm right alongside hers, not touching, not touching, and yet..._

* * *

"Let me get Ianto for you," Martha said into Jack's ear, only moving a bit as his head rested on her shoulder. She didn't know how to help. "Let him take you home."

Jack shook his head. "I can't."

" _Please_." Martha tightened her grip. "You can't be alone right now."

What would he be doing, she wondered, if he hadn't come to her?

She thought of the order for a UNIT cap that had been entered yesterday into the database. It would arrive in two weeks, shipped straight to Jack's personal address. Would they still want it? Would _Jack_ still want— _her_?

Martha had been undercover. Martha had come to them with the concern. _Martha_ was the reason...

"It's not your fault," she choked out.

Jack held on tighter. "It's not yours."

* * *

_"It was the screams," Ianto said roughly as they sat at the kitchen table. Between them, the radio static fizzed intermittently. Ianto fiddled with a knob. "Twenty hours a day. Every day. I_ knew _, but I didn't—Helen didn't—I've never heard it before."_

_"Twenty hours a day?"_

_"When you're taken by the Rift, there's no saying where you end up." Ianto shuddered. "They come back broken. I told you they came back damaged, but... it's_ worse _. They're not—they're human, but—they're not—they're not whole anymore. Maybe we're all a little broken. But the best we can do is make them comfortable."_

_"These people," Martha finally said, after days of dancing around the subject, bracing herself for the answer, "they're kept here, right? You take care of them? Torchwood takes care of them?"_

_"Helen takes care of them."_

_Ianto went back to the knobs. The radio was fiddly at the best of times, as Martha could hear from her room, but he always got some sort of voices. Now, the white noise made the air around them crackle._

_She didn't like the look in his eyes. "What happened to Torchwood?"_

_"London fell. It's the last thing I remember." Ianto closed his eyes. His hands moved away from the radio, held loosely as if uncontrolled, and fiddled with his sleeves. "I woke up in a Himalayan hospital thinking I was in London. I couldn't find her. I couldn't find anyone, and they didn't let me move, they said I was hurt, they said it was a_ miracle _... Some fucking miracle."_

_He picked at the shirt, running the edges between his fingers, pulling at the fabric and distressing the hems of his sleeves. Martha thrust her hand forward between his when his fingers got dangerously close to skin, and he squeezed it so hard she had to suppress a flinch._

_"I woke up in the middle of nowhere with no memories of the past year. They told me it was a year. They told me it was a miracle, but all I remember is burning and screaming and metal and... we fell and no one helped. It was a slaughterhouse. I have scars I don't remember getting. I don't know what happened to her, I just woke up and I hurt and I was alone. They shipped me here a few days later. A week, maybe, I don't..." He laughed. "Head trauma's a bitch."_

_"_ Ianto _."_

 _"Helen knows me, apparently." He spared a glance to the corridor, at the end of which Helen slept. "Not_ me _, a different version of me. Whoever I became. Torchwood, can you believe it? I got out of Canary Wharf and ended up in Cardiff."_

_Martha looked at him and saw Annie's eyes in his, green where his were blue. She saw Adeola, bursting with knowledge Torchwood had given her, but unable to share it. Had Ianto known her?_

_"I've been here ever since." Ianto paused but his hands were still tight around Martha's. She couldn't get a read on him,_ still _, but he shook his head and stayed silent, and she took the hint._

_And yet. "Why did you bring me here?"_

_At that, Ianto let out a small, soft smile. "I couldn't just leave you."_

* * *

_Let me use your phone_ , Martha wanted to say, or perhaps even, _Give me your phone_.

Given Jack's state, however, she didn't expect results, and dug it out of this coat pocket herself. _Contacts_. There.

With one arm around Jack, she used the other to find Ianto's number. It was the middle of the night—a generous person might say morning, but they would have to be a true philanthropist, for the sun was not yet up—but she knew Torchwood.

When one of their own was in trouble, nothing would stand in the way of support.

And she knew Ianto—the same stood at a much higher level for him.

* * *

_Martha woke up with an arm over her waist and a crick in her neck. She was warmer than usual, but usually she was under just the blanket. Now—oh, that's what it was. Ianto. Ianto's arm. Ianto's breath ghosting in her ear. Ianto's legs tangled up in hers._

_How long had it been since she'd touched someone for a reason other than defense?_

_Martha closed her eyes and woke up once more to see Ianto awake, leaning against the headboard and looking through one of the books she'd taken to keeping on her nightstand. She always meant to read it, but between nightmares, catching up on sleep, and the hospital's upkeep, Martha hadn't even started; Ianto was already a quarter of the way in._

_"It's good," he said when their eyes met._

_"I'm glad," Martha replied, and didn't see him for the rest of the day after they emerged for breakfast, because Helen dragged Ianto away and Martha was tasked with dinner._

_They looked at each other across the table when they ate in the evening, careful around bent utensils and cracked plates, catching Helen's exasperated looks and the small smiles that lit up Annie's eyes._

_Martha was no great cook, but no one complained, especially since they were running low on their already-limited amount of food. As Helen left the room, Ianto hinted that he needed to make a supply run. He'd been silenced with a glare and Martha waited until Helen's door was shut before asking why._

" _I went out for food," Ianto said, resting a tentative hand on her hip when Martha stepped closer, "and I came back with you."_

* * *

Ianto came in disheveled and distressed, in just his shirtsleeves, as if he'd fallen asleep in his suit and then taken it off. His eyes were red-rimmed and his hands shook from grief and fatigue, but when he approached the sofa and leaned over Jack to softly cajole him into a standing, his voice was steady.

He shot Martha a grateful look as he led Jack out, a hand on his back and arm, walking at his side, a warm, constant presence to Jack's drunk, bereaved mind.

"Thank you," he said at the doorway.

Martha forced herself to hold his gaze as he retreated, closing the door when their footsteps were only an echo of memory, and then finally sliding down it. She didn't cry—she didn't think she could anymore, not for real.

She waited a few moments and stood up.

Martha grieved for a man she barely knew, a man she'd lost, and a man she couldn't imagine being. But dawn was rising over the horizon—and it would rise every day, because they were Torchwood. They did what needed to be done, damn the consequences. They didn't get to stop or grieve or die with dignity, but they could keep going.

Martha was good at that.

The dawn rose and so did she, except this time she headed for her own bed. She couldn't help the world if she didn't help Torchwood, and she would be no help to Torchwood if she didn't rest.

* * *

_Ianto had returned from his supply run just after sundown, with a nasty bruise on his knee and several weeks' worth of food. Nothing fancy, most of it far from enjoyable, but enough to keep them_ safe _. As Ianto sat by the kitchen table, icing his injury under the combined glares of Helen and Annie, Martha looked at the food and began planning recipes and calculating rations._

_"Did you see anyone?" Martha asked._

_Ianto opened his mouth to answer but his voice cracked. He stayed silent, avoiding their looks, and shook his head._

_"Who did you see?" Martha asked when the dishes were put away and they lay side by side in her bed._

_Ianto buried his face in his pillow and didn't answer._

_Martha waited. Still, he didn't reply. She ran a gentle hand over his shoulder, soothing, and sighed. He had fallen asleep._

_Except then Ianto turned over and looked at her, and his eyes were harder than before, more determined. She would call the blue different, colder, more calculating, if she didn't hate the idea that eye color changed with emotion._

_"You can't stay here."_

_Martha startled, anger and grief pushing outward, and Ianto sat up, dragging her up with him, and forced her to look. He didn't look remarkable. He looked tired, not like her old fellow students or the Doctor, or Jack when he stopped pretending. He looked like he hadn't slept properly, like he didn't know who he was or where he belonged. Like his whole world had collapsed and he didn't know whether to claw himself out of the hole or throw himself down into the abyss._

_"You have a_ purpose _."_

 _He didn't say_ job _. Or_ duty _. Nothing that would cost Martha her agency, make her feel obligated. But she'd started walking with a purpose and he_ knew _that. He knew_ her _, the drive to help, to heal, the only way to actually save the world._

_Whatever he'd seen, Martha would see, too. She stood in the doorway and looked at Ianto, framed by the candles slowly melting onto the floor._

_"Thank you," he said, "maybe preemptively, but thank you. For everything."_

_Martha turned away from him, the grass crinkling underfoot, the morning dew making it slippery and sending a fresh smell into the air. She wore a pair of new boots and held an expertly put together pack on her shoulders._

_Ianto said something behind her, but only a soft whisper of it carried over on the wind, as intelligible as his radio, and Martha walked forward without wavering._

_She had a message to spread._

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for the Torchwood Bingo on Tumblr, with the prompts: healing, flat holm, dw companion cameo, crossover of your choice, rarepair, under the influence, amnesia, the year that never was, original character.
> 
> I am incredibly pleased with this story. I wrote it over the past two days and I'm really excited to share it. Let me know what you think if you feel like it!


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